Leader of Africa’s first Economic War under the Black Wall Street platform, Charles N Lambert, has strongly condemned the high rate at which Africans import goods into the continent.
Africans are known for their high penchant for foreign-made goods in comparison to those produced locally in the continent.
While committing to fighting this danger that has destroyed our economy, Lambert says the Black Wall Street is ready to attack it with full force to make sure the rate of importation is reduced in our continent.
Africans must be able to produce, and If the production process in Africa is supported, there will be return in investment, there will be job creation, there will be a reduction on capital flight, there will be drastic circulation of money in Africa, and when that happens, poverty will forever be gone!
Let’s take a look at mobile phone importation, for example, almost everyone in Africa uses a mobile phone, and two years ago, a country brought in over 300 million mobile phones into Africa, made over 60 billion dollars and disappeared with the money, leaving nothing behind.
On the aspect for food importation, as of 2017, Africa’s annual food import bill rose to $35 billion, estimated to rise to $110 billion by 2025.
This weakens African economies, decimates its agriculture and exports jobs from the continent. Africa’s annual food import bill of $35 billion is just about the same amount it needs to close its power deficit.
President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, who was a Nigerian Agric Minister, was speaking at the Center for Global Development event held in Washington DC where he lamented the negative effects that huge food imports had on the continent.
To rapidly support Africa to diversify its economies, and revive its rural areas, Africans began to prioritize agriculture. Some countries like Nigeria stopped the importation of rice into the country to start producing it.
Adesina revealed that AFDB has committed $24 billion towards agriculture in the next 10 years, with a sharp focus on food self-sufficiency and agricultural industrialization.
Over $411.32 billion worth of goods were imported into Nigeria alone between 2010 and 2017.
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In 2017 alone, Nigeria imported $32.67 billion worth of goods from around the globe, down by 7.29% from the total amount of goods imported in the previous year – 2016.
When you look at the United States, they have one of the safest drug supplies in the world because its pharmaceutical supply system is “closed” to importation and parallel trade. Once a drug is outside the strictly regulated United States distribution channel, there is no guarantee of its authenticity, effectiveness, or safety.
Drug importation supporters think that simply because drugs are purchased from “safe” countries such as Canada and Britain, they are actually made in those countries and are subject to strict regulations and oversight. But this is a dangerous misconception.
For example, if pharmaceuticals are not earmarked for Canadian citizens, they are not subject to the Canadian government’s safety regulations. By marking the drugs “for export only,” drug exporters can make Canada a post office box for fake or low-quality drugs from China, India, and other countries notorious for ineffective and sometimes lethal products.
Importing goods from selected European countries isn’t any safer. European Union parallel importation and trade laws provide an opportunity for the inadvertent entry of counterfeit drugs into legitimate supply chains and markets. Counterfeit products that get into the legitimate distribution chain of one E.U. member can contaminate the distribution chains of other countries.
Charles Lambert, in episode 12 of the Economic War show on Thursday reveals that this incessant high taste for imported goods among Africans has been detrimental to the economy of the continent in the past decades.
Africa is a continent where there is no made-in-African toothpick, tomatoes, razor blade and also, foreign-made toothpicks can still be found in every nook and cranny of the continent.
High level of import often leads to forex scarcity, as a result of an increase in the demand for dollar by importers which will in turn depreciation in the value our currency.
The high value of import by Africans has led to unfavourable trade balances, terms of trade and even trade policies for our continent.
Since Africans even import goods that can be easily produced locally, many thriving local factories have folded up and are still folding up.
Thousands of Africans have lost their jobs since local industries are closing down.
Dumping has affected local products due to the heavy inflow of low-priced foreign goods which are pushed out of importing countries into Africa.
Now you see how dangerous importation of goods can be and why we MUST switch now to save our future from more dangers ahead.
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